I forgot to add to my list of people into whose hands the tradition fell, the idiosyncratic singers who used the songs to air their idiosyncrasies while at the same time turning them into displays of instrumental virtuosity which destroyed the narrative nature of the songs - a dominant trend in the revival for a long time - I wonder who brought that into my head!
MacColl and Lloyd certainly did not start a networks of clubs and festivals - people often give the revival far more credit for being organised and planned than it actually was. The only attempt that I know of, to influence the revival as a whole (apart from the public expression of opinions in magazines like those edited by Fred (aka Karl) Dallas) was a public meeting held in The John Snow pub, Soho, (circa 1965) with Lloyd, Alex Campbell and Bob Davenport as speakers and MacColl in the chair. The meeting ended almost in a punch-up, thanks mainly to B Ds arrogant bad manners - little changes in the world!
WEED
No, I am not a faithful servant of the folk tradition; we did collect songs on the basis that we would pass them on to others, which we have always tried to do, but that's as far as our 'dedication' goes. I'm in it for one very selfish reason, for the pleasure of hearing good traditional songs well sung.
Cap'n
We've had the Comhaltas argument before; little point in going over old ground, apart from reiterating my opinion that that worthy organsiation continues to distort and damage Irish traditional song and music with its competition ethic. As Breandán Breathnach so concisely put it - 'it's an organisation with a great future behind it' (and of late, a very wealthy one)
Jim Carroll.